


nameless is the time of trust

by drcalvin



Category: Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Bondage, Identity Issues, M/M, Madeleine Era, Power Dynamics, Sex with minimal plot, Trust Issues, Wax Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:13:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drcalvin/pseuds/drcalvin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madeleine and Javert: in the light of the day, they can be master and lawful servant, but there remains a thousand challenges between them, weeds of suspicion growing from the past. In the dark, there burns another candle and its color is desire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nameless is the time of trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vejiicakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vejiicakes/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [信而不可言](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035097) by [micorom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/micorom/pseuds/micorom)



> Yeaaaah, this is a gift for the lovely and amazing Vejii who deserves the very best of long, sexy fanfic the world can offer, but who'll have to settle for my weird brain images, oops. I hope they go well with your brain images? 
> 
> I couldn't find it in myself to sexify TAC!Javert, so you get the delectable Norm Lewis version instead, feel free to insert your favorite Hotass Valhotjean in the scenario to match :P

"Perhaps you wish to inspect the juridical facilities yourself, Monsieur le maire? To make sure everything is up to snuff." 

There is no hint of a smile curving his lips, the deep voice as serious as ever. Yet the mayor hears in the words a challenge. He lets them flow past, smiles blandly, and says that he is happy to place his trust in the dutiful officers of the law.

Inspector Javert's eyes are dark from nature, and grow only darker the more secrets he amasses. Impossible to gaze into them and discern the intent behind these verbal pinpricks, these offers that seem to dance between threats and... 

"Monsieur's regard for our capabilities is truly overwhelming. I must strive even harder to prove my competence in the face of such consideration." 

Javert allows himself a tiny smile now, and the mayor fights to keep his serene air. 

He gazes at door long after that tall shape has closed it -- softly and punctiliously as always -- and attempts to order the conflicting images he has of Javert.

It is always the easiest to meet him as the mayor; the mayor who has nothing but trust and well-wishes towards the diligent officer of the law. The mayor who lives in Montreuil, breathes the air of the town until it fills him and erases everything but the dutiful official. Perhaps he is too transparent, this mayor, for the inspector to trust him? Perhaps the man of law has seen too many masks to fall for even the most perfect face. But what is he seeking beneath?

Mayor Madeleine rises, circles his desk once, listening to his own steps. There is, if one pays attention, a slight unevenness to the sound. His heel still drags, after all these years, though he has worked hard to remove all traces of the past. Is that limp what the inspector is looking for? Is he the jailer who remembers and hunts to this day? 

"We caught the rat," Javert had said in this office not half a year ago, before he had even fully opened the door. The mayor had been speaking to a tradesman -- or had it been a wainwright? He cannot not recall, but even if his visitor had been a royal courier, the interruption would have been permitted. 

The mayor's orders had been clear: Find the man who would treat an innocent girl so viciously and bring him beneath the shadow of the law. Report immediately. 

Javert had performed to the letter of his instructions. He'd bared his teeth when the mayor gave him the orders, a glimmer of excitement in his otherwise stony face, and saluted. Reports had come in once a day. No trace, hearing witnesses, arresting vagabonds, a rumor that grew into a hunted shadow, silence -- triumph. 

"Escaped convict," Javert had continued then, victorious and satisfied beneath the dust of the road. "He was hiding in an empty shepherd's shelter." 

He'd described the puzzle and the chase with the same satisfaction a craftsman might describe his latest piece, and Madeleine had dared relax at hearing the tale told. Had dared lay a hand on the shoulder of Javert's official coat, vague memories of soldierly gestures and appropriate camraderie. "Excellent work, Inspector, excellent. I am glad we have a man of your skills here, though I wish we'd need never employ them."

"This was nothing, Monsieur. He'd gone to ground, and once they do..." Javert's fingers drummed against his nightstick, a pattern of noise too simple to be a rhythm. "It is only a matter of time. The law will always get its due." 

The movement was too familiar. It spoke of satisfaction and matters settled, sang with the clatter of free heels on pavement, an old counterpoint to the rattle of chains. The noise and the sight of his fingers, the tone of voice and those exact words -- who had he seen run, before? Not to violate a girl barely out of childhood, but to flee before he labored himself to death…

Faces swam in his mind, worn-out and ugly with despair, but one stood clear. A different coat, but the same authority hanging off him, a dark smile and gloved fingers that tapped on the stick when he was pleased. 

It appeared suddenly to the mayor that that the tilt of Javert's head and the small creases by his eyes whispered of suspicions; where before he had seen only the workman's pride, the words now cast the inspector's visage as a threat -- or was it only his memories that haunted him?

He had smiled then, Madeleine, in his vaguest way. Spoke of comfort for the grieving family and a swift but fair trial. Removed his hand, the movement relaxed and natural, as only long-practiced naturalness could be. He ignored Javert's hint that they should set up stricter controls for travelers passing near Montreuil, and met the dark eyes with blandness that had nothing to hide -- for the mayor had no past, had never seen this man before he joined the police, was protected behind the innocence of ignorance.

The mayor had waited, until the door had closed behind both the cart-wright and the Inspector. Stood by the window and watched him march from the factory towards the center of the town. Not until he was out of sight did he allow himself to sink into his chair, to swallow the sourness in his mouth and release the fears of bygone days. He thought back to the words exchanged, turned them and twisted them, but felt the memory fray beneath the onslaught of his worries. The more he replayed the passed moments in his mind, the more the inspector's face twisted into a mask of loathsome suspicion, and his white, white teeth grew sharp and snapping.

Now he cannot untangle the truth from the ghosts of his mind, and so he turns instead to another memory. A rainy evening, months ago, Madeleine hurrying home with his collar turned up, vague thoughts of a fire and a book warming him. 

He was not the mayor then, just another man trying to escape the winter rain; his foot had dragged unevenly through the puddles, but he pushed on without worrying about it. Even allowed himself to enjoy the luxurious thickness of the coat, and the still foreign sensation of the hat on his head, breaking the worst of the storm.

Perhaps he'd hurried too much, or possibly it was the limp that made him unsteady on his feet. But when Madeleine almost slipped in the mud, there was a hand along his back to support him, and a quick 'hoppala'.

Only the merest hint of graying brows was visible of Inspector Javert between the brim of his hat and the line of his collar, but the amusement in his voice was not to mistake. 

"You should be careful, Monsieur. The streets can be treacherous in this weather."

He had apologized, then changed his mind halfway through the words and turned it into an attempt at gratefulness instead. Javert had accepted both with rare cheer, led him towards the mairie with a gloved hand against his elbow, heavy tread secure whether wading through a puddle or crossing over mud.

"You enjoy this weather?" Madeleine had asked, feeling a strange exhilaration bubble inside as Javert made a (dreadful) joke.

"It is a weather for policemen," Javert agreed. "The lawful stay at home, and are less tempted to become the lawless. The rain cools down overheated blood, and the bars and brothel's will sit half-empty until closing, when all inside hurry home without bothering anyone."

"That is true, but this weather..." The mayor shook his head, but regretted it as a trickle of water trickled down his neck. "It's been raining upwards of three days now! I must admit, as much as I try to cherish God's green earth and all on it, days like this feel truly wretched."

Javert shrugged, and their shoulders bumped together when Madeleine attempted to step around a puddle he knew to be treacherously deep. They had to stay close together to hear each other in the pelting rain, and he thought not twice about lifting his arm, offering it to the inspector who hooked their elbows together without comment.

"I dislike the deep winter," Javert admitted, "it is not to my tastes to have frost in my hair. But this? My hat keeps the worst off and my boots are good -- it is a sorry policeman indeed, who does not learn to treasure and care for his boots! -- and the positives far outweigh the negatives."

"So cold does not drive the criminals inside as effectively?" Madeleine asked, amused but finding himself not surprised at Javert's preferences; as steely-tempered and insular as the man was, this silent cheer at the horrid weather fit him astonishingly well.

"Cold drives the successful criminals inside," Javert acknowledged, "has him firing the grate and drinking up his spoils. But the petty thieves who know almost as little of thieving as of honest work? The cut-purses who drink up their coins faster than they can collect them, oh no, Monsieur, for them the cold means only shorter tempers and clumsier hands. Perhaps I catch a few more criminals in the winter, Monsieur, but the crime itself does not lessen."

"No," Madeleine said, and recalled a long-ago winter day and the relentless cold outside, gnawing on too-thin bodies until it met the hunger inside and leaving nothing human in between. He would perhaps recall more, but Javert was speaking again, almost shouting against the gale, and so Madeleine chose to focus on him and listen intently, while the rain swept the past to where it belonged; far away. 

He could not allow even his inspector to continue out in this weather, as cheerful a storm-crow as he seemed to be. While their coats hung steaming by the kitchen fire, they shared a cup and spoke of nothing much; storms they had endured and the minutiae of the town, and what whispers reached them from the capital.

Javert was not much for politics; neither was Madeleine, though necessity had taught him to play the game at a rudimentary level. It did not matter at the moment, since they were speaking less to debate the realities of state, and more to... Madeleine startled at the realization, then hid his surprise behind an awkward laugh; they were speaking merely to make conversation. Them, the two most unsociable fellows Montreuil had gossiped about in a decade, speaking so freely to each other -- it would entertain the town for weeks if anyone learned of it!

Hesitantly, for despite having just learned that his inspector had a sense of humor (dark, dry and just a bit nasty) he was not certain how he took to joking, Madeleine shared his thought. For a moment Javert looked baffled, then sputtered with laughter, and soon they were sharing their private opinions of the townspeople. 

An inspector sees a lot; a mayor, Javert informed him with pretended gravity, appears to see almost as much.

"Pardon my frankness, Monsieur," Javert said when he was later buttoning up his coat and pulling on the formality of his position, as if it kept the rain out as much as the hat he pressed firmly onto his head. "You are not much like other men, are you?"

"In some small particulars I might differ," Madeleine acknowledged, "but on the whole, I believe we are all fairly similar. We have the same hopes and wants, we pray for the same things, and our fears do not differ too greatly either. Yes, the clothes we wear, the color of our skin --" Javert gave a sarcastic little bow at that, and Madeleine marveled at how he would not have recognized the implicit humor in that neutral face before this afternoon. "-- that might differ, but what is inside... All men are born with similar characteristics. What comes out depends mostly on how they are developed and nurtured."

"See there," Javert said without rancor, "again you speak of this world I cannot even recognize. No, no, Monsieur, no more words, I beg you. I have reports to write and should not occupy your time with useless philosophizing any longer. Ah -- although, if you pardon --" 

And Javert, the inspector of Montreuil-sur-Mer, whom half the town thought to know neither joy nor philosophy, reached out a hand and unwound a string of thread from Madeleine's hair. Two tiny pearls hung on it, black pearls from the factory, and he mutely accepted them when Javert put the thread in his hand.

The inspector did not attempt to explain himself, only bowed, and turned on his heel. When the door closed between them, Madeleine was still standing there, holding a string with two pearls in his hand and the memory of gloves brushing against his forehead.

In the now, in his office, memories of a hunter on the trail blend with that of a man who enjoys the rain against his hat, and can pull a surprisingly good imitation of the most strident lawyer in Arras. 

Madeleine cannot sort inspector Javert into his otherwise so well-ordered life. The mayor can fit him, easily, and needs not think twice about Javert: he is an inspector, he belongs to the town and his duty, just as the mayor does. The hunted man from the past knows him too, the jailer and the danger; but he isn't him any longer, is he? And yet, without that tormented soul to give color and shape to the mayor's world, without memories of a childhood (however harsh) and his impression of tasting fresh bread after years of deprivation... Without the past, all things appear insubstantial and bland when the mayor experiences them. 

There is his duty, yes, and the comfort of faith, but sometimes the man who strives so hard to be Mayor Madeleine, and Madeleine alone, looks up from his work, and his soul hungers for a taste of something else than bread and duty.

Perhaps, Madeleine thinks, he should listen to his own words about the similar needs of men? He has no past at all, and a future of repentance; the inspector has a background he will not discuss though it is written in his face and his future shackled to the pull of duty, with no room for excursions at all. Perhaps they might at least keep each other company for some little time, while each walks his narrow road.

And whether failure or success, an attempt would at long last give Madeleine something wholly his own.

* * *

That they'd find themselves here, he does not think either had expected. But it took so little -- a gesture and a touch to ask, the decision to risk it all in response -- and their paths curved readily away from the confines of duty and duty and nothing but duty. 

The simplicity in slipping, Madeleine surmises that they both suspected. He can recognize the traces left from standing on the edge of everything in Javert. It is there to read in his careful, unaccented diction, in the measured way he treads the ground and, most of all, in his eternal deference to the ones placed above him. Madeleine knows he too shares these traits, in speech and manners and possibly a hundred invisible things; he knows it is a topic he cannot mention, for the past is a country of terror.

But that they would slip like this, not in illegality and crime, but into the half-forgotten temptations of flesh and the dangers of scandal... 

Now Javert is in his bed, his coat and hat left outside, his shirt and breeches dropped on the floor, and only a white cravat around his eyes and two worn belts around his wrists anchoring him to the reality of this room; for Madeleine can still not believe the reality of this dalliance, not even five weeks after the first half-voiced invitations and clumsy touches. 

He is in his nightshirt; he easily grows cold, he told Javert the first time he undressed, though he later grew embarrassed at the lie. Being Madeleine is not a lie, no more than repentance after sinning. The wish to see Javert bound, not in shackles of misery or revenge, but in creaking leather that only emphasize how he allows himself to be tied down and used -- how they have stumbled into the dark together, and found that their natural pace matches perfectly, once there is no light to disturb them -- is the truth as well. 

His fear to remove the nightshirt, to risk a slip of that tightly tied cravat, however, that he dares not share. He refuses to regret his wariness. If Javert does not know, then surely he _suspects_ , and he brings his suspicion into this room every time he returns, even when he closes his questioning eyes and allows himself to be bound. As if he too knows that this is a space outside of time and duty. But, Madeleine acknowledges, in this dark, while there is no mayor and no inspector, there is a man who wishes to be bound and there is that inside himself that does not mind binding; he would not have needed to explain.

Perhaps that is why he lifts the candle tonight? Atonement -- no, that is a concept from his daylight life. But Javert has eyed it several times, though never outright asked. And while Madeleine is deeply reluctant to cause harm, he has tested the sting of wax on his lower arm and knows it is not truly painful. It does nothing for him, but...

He watches Javert move, growing slowly restless on the bed, and the tickle of interest grows inside of Madeleine. 

Javert's coat hides firm muscles and well-formed limbs. His habitual scowl and the forbidding shadow cast by his hat disguises that his lips are wide and expressive, that they know how to smile and form most pleasantly around sighs and other soft sounds. Madeleine holds the candle closer, careful with the gathering wax, and admires the warm colors bleeding into his skin; several nights, they have stayed in the gray shadows of moonlight, and the first few encounters, they did not come as far as to reveal any skin at all. 

He waits, patiently, while Javert tests his bonds. They will hold, and because he knows that, and knows that Javert knows it, Madeleine can close his eyes and listen to the sound of the leather and anticipate the scent of it mingling with their pleasure. He lowers his left hand until he can feel the tiny puffs of warm air from Javert's exhalation against his palm. The hair on his arms rises, and his cheeks grow warm; Madeleine makes a shushing sound, strokes work-roughened fingers over soft lips and watches for the signs he has learned to recognize... for the signs he is awaiting now. For the signs, he admits in the silence of his own mind, that fill his empty days with a rushing feeling, followed by a peace not even his work can grant.

It is not the blindfold, though he is growing fond of the contrast of it, nor even directly the bonds; pleasant as it is to put them all in place and feel Javert tense beneath his hands -- they both share the instinct to fight such bondage, but where the thought of actually having to do it causes Madeleine's stomach to roll with worry, Javert seems to delight in going against this instinct.

It is not even this fine sight, he thinks as Javert's cheek trembles before relaxing, his lips slipping open while as his right hand grips the belt; he admires it of course, lazily draws his hand down the well-formed chest and firm stomach, watches but does not yet touch below.

But what he cherishes most is is the next moment: when Javert exhales and his elbows sink down, relaxed, when Madeleine is allowed to move his head -- to the side to admire, or to tip back and brush lips against lips -- with the lightest touch and spend anything from a few heartbeats to an hour on touching and stroking, while Javert's breath grows deep and his body relaxes; no longer fighting or hunting. It is a curious surrender, and Madeleine cradles it close, warms cool fingers and empty heart on this strange trust. He cannot order Javert to anything with words; he tried that at the beginning, and received nothing but insolence (In here, you are not my mayor, Javert said the first time they entered the bedroom. In here, you are not my chief of police, Madeleine had agreed) and as they go on, the tension will return between them. The flesh has needs, and they will struggle and tangle in the oldest of ways... but for now, there lies a handsome man who has given himself to Madeleine, suspicions and all, and the trust burns hotter than the melting wax slowly dripping onto his hand.

Madeleine who eats simple food and tastes, too often, the faded regret of a past and seven hungry children, tastes him now, with soft open-mouthed kisses. It is warmth and danger, but it is also company; one who sees him through closed eyes, one who knows him in the night and whose glances at Madeleine's hands show that he recalls him with a hidden regard throughout the days of duty.

When he has tasted his fill, when he has touched enough to long for more, then he angles the candle, watches the wax build up a shimmering edge 

Javert hisses when wax splatters on his skin, heavy raindrops that slowly solidify until they look like grayish scars; bullet marks from a war not yet fought. There is no need for Madeleine to ask if it hurts, not with Javert arching up as each drop hits, melting back against the covers when he hears Madeleine walk around the bed. Lowering the candle, Madeleine searches for the limit, finds it in the whistling pitch of one breath -- cradles and cherishes it close, even as he lifts his hand higher. There is no protest, no word of warning, and the trust is heady like rich wine.

Javert's breath grows shuddery while Madeleine paints a ring of pearly wax around his left nipple, and he feels the need to capture one of those breaths. The angle becomes awkward, arm raised above his head and the hot wax first spilling on his own arm. But he prevails, eyes closed in concentration and hits the center of the ring at the second try, capturing the small sound of pleasurable distress from Javert. Madeleine feels his own desire stir and reaches for the second candle.

He paints upon Javert; not in wax, for the patterns meld together and quickly become messy stains that cannot bear witness upon the sigh that unfolds before him. No, the wax is merely a tool, the sculpting knife he has taken up to carve out moans and hitching breaths, and a thousand nameless nuances of expression. His art is a fleeting one Madeleine knows. Even as he admires the sweat beading on Javert's forehead, dripping wax from two candles along the soft flesh on his thighs, he can feel the moment between them transform, as malleable as wax and as impossible to freeze as the flame itself.

"Please," Javert gasps at last, no demand nor order in his voice. He bites his lip, but the bonds remain lax above his head. Madeleine continues a little more; draws two messy lines of wax up his legs, around the thatch of wiry hair. He lowers the candles slightly, continues up along Javert's side, wax dripping haphazardly onto skin or sheets, and Madeleine rejoices in the overwhelmed noise coming from Javert now, a change of pitch each time the heat touches flesh, a shiver and perfect surrender.

"Please," he asks again, raising his hips so that their excitements brush against each other, and his voice is full of need. A need only Madeleine can fulfill, a desire for him, and that warms the cold crevasses inside that not even repentance can fulfill. 

"Yes," Madeleine promises, gently, and blows out the shortest candle, before tilting Javert's head back with the merest pressure of his knuckle against his chin. "One moment," he says while drawing a stinging necklace along Javert's collarbones, admiring how the stillness turns to tension, how the wax trembles and wavers as it trickles down his chest and forms a shallow pool between his pectorals. Now, Javert wants, now his breath is ragged and his hands clench on nothing; he makes no further demands, though. Madeleine has promised, and he is a man of his word, and that too is a trust between them.

Instead Javert waits, writhing in silence, while Madeleine blows out the second candle, then pinches them both off with spit-covered fingers and flings them to the floor; stains of wax are a headache for tomorrow, but he has no desire to burn the house down.

Wax and sweat and oil… there are many stains they leave upon this bed and each other, but sin? No, Madeleine thinks not. Causing such soft joy on the face of law, joining without words and fitting without all the edges of daytime and all the chains of the past – that is never sin. When Javert wraps strong legs around him and gives voice to pleasure long denied, he knows that in this if nothing else, they are in agreement. 

Then Madeleine allows all thoughts to stop and hears only the comforting language of their bodies in the darkness where no light of duty, and no suspicions reach.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback & comments are always welcome.


End file.
